Used
by Ed's Tomato
Summary: Oneshot about Toad.


This is a sad little oneshot. I own nothing X-Men, obvious by my lack of funds I should think.

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I was a fool to think she could ever really love me. But when you look like I look, and have led the life I've led, you grasp at anything thrown your way. So I grasped at her, and still do, even though I know it's over…what fleeting happiness I had.

Mystique life has been every bit as rough as mine has. She didn't have the orphanage, like I did, but she's had horrors. She won't talk about it, but I know it's there. I guess she just doesn't let herself feel anymore…too many disappointments in life. Maybe I'm better off in that department than she is. I've never been disappointed; I've just never had anything.

I thought maybe it'd be different though. When she first started showing interest in me, I was stupid enough to think maybe she had real feelings. Maybe she almost did. Maybe she just doesn't know how not to detach. Maybe it was the fact that I obviously loved her so much. Maybe that's why she stayed as long as she did. Pity. Great.

It was two months before the big plan would go into effect and our lives would be tumbled and jostled around forever. Two months before I'd be struck by lightning and left to die.

I was alone in the common room watching the telly. Most of the time Viktor confiscated the remote and it's all I can do to get in an hour or so of something I'd like to watch, but that day he was off running an errand for Mags and I had the place to myself. Or so I thought.

She'd been distant since I'd first come to the Island of the Brotherhood. I was fourteen, and nervous and she was sexy as Hell and always off doing something dangerous and heroic. I didn't see much of her those first few years. She was the only really active member at the time and Magneto couldn't afford for her to be off duty.

It was only lately that she'd been around from time to time, as we neared the culmination of all Magneto's work.

I had a beer in my hand that day and I was pretty relaxed. I remember, because I don't' usually relax enough to be taken by surprise the way she took me. I definitely don't now. But she came sidling up behind me on the couch and put a hand on my shoulder almost putting me through the ceiling in shock.

She grinned that evil seductive grin she has that makes me melt and fear for my life all at the same time, and I tried to stammer out a 'hello'. She still does that to me, makes me feel like I'm bloody fifteen and all thumbs.

She looked me over and then came around the couch to sit beside me. RIGHT, beside me. No one ever gets that close voluntarily, even now, she's the only one that ever has.

"How old are you, Mort?" She asked me, in that strange multichordal voice of hers. I didn't even know she knew my name.

"Twenty five," I answered, wondered what she was getting at, ran a hand self-consciously over my hair.

"All grown up?"

I shrugged then, blushing slightly. Told you she makes me act peculiar. Me, a sodding assassin, blushin like a school girl. She seemed satisfied with the answer though, because she leaned on me, shutting her eyes and breathing in a sigh.

I didn't really know what to do. There, a beautiful naked woman was practically laying on me and I didn't know what to do. Well, that's what happens when you have a deficiency in social skills.

Finally I put an arm around her tentatively and she leaned further into me, those glowing yellow eyes, almond shaped and perfect, slid open to gaze up at me in a way that no one before or after her ever has.

"You want me."

She didn't ask. She didn't have to. Of course I wanted her. She was spectacular. I nodded dumbly and she leaned up to press her lips against mine. And I was stupid enough to think it meant something.

I wrapped my arms around her and returned what was my first kiss with vigor enough to bring a smile to her lips. She undressed me then, and I couldn't stop swallowing and blushing and wanting to go in one of our rooms, but I think it excited her. I didn't have the balls to put my foot down and risk losing what was about to happen. I still don't.

What happened next…well…it never got old, even though it's happened to me many times now. Every time I couldn't believe it was happening to me. Every time she made me feel like I might die inside. I think it flattered her. I know she didn't expect me to cry after. Neither did I. The thought still embarrasses me.

She held me and something in her voice changed, and she spoke to me, really spoke to me. Not words of carefully played seduction or the crass voice she used in training, but really spoke.

"Mort, you okay?"

My face was pressed into her shoulder and I nodded, afraid to speak, lest my voice crack. She ran a hand over the back of my hair and was silent for a long time. Maybe she felt guilty. I'll never know I suppose.

I got dressed without looking at her, but she touched my hair again, getting my attention when I was tugging on my boots, about to leave the room. I swallowed, when I looked up at her and my world stopped when she kissed me again. Mystique never was one for a lot of talk. I grinned, like an idiot and went to my room and thought about her for the next two months of my life.

She came in and out during my time. She used me, I suppose. Although I don't mind so much. I would have taken anything she would have given me, though I wished I knew that's how it was going down to begin with.

It was only a month we were 'together' before I realized I wasn't the only one. I was probably never the only one.

I heard them one night. Vic's room is only down the hall from mine. I laid in bed and cried. Hadn't cried so much since I was a little kid. I almost stalked down the door and killed them both. But what was the point? She didn't love me, and I'd have a Hell of a time trying to kill Vic.

So I just laid there. She came in my room afterward. Sloppy seconds. I felt sick the whole time, but I couldn't tell her no. I couldn't tell her I knew. I wanted to kill her, wanted to kill myself, but I just went through the motions and fell asleep on her shoulder.

My work suffered. I wasn't as concentrated in practice. Vic nearly killed me twice. Maybe I let him. I don't know anymore.

I think it's why Storm got me. I couldn't keep my mind in the game. Had to play with Storm and make her suffer the way I couldn't' with Raven. She was right to electrocute me. I deserved it. I was trying to kill her after all and it's the hazards of the job.

Still I wasn't granted release in death. I floated in the river for an hour before they picked me up. Shivering, waiting to die. The police found me first, scooped me out and beat the Hell out of me before taking me to prison.

So, I sit here now, and all I have to do with my day is think about her. About how she won't come for me, though part of me still holds hope. I hate this cell. I hate the normals that hold me here without trial. Most of all I hate myself for feeling something that wasn't there, and missing it so much now that it's gone.

If I get out of here, I don't know what I'll do. Kill Mystique? Sabretooth? Try to rejoin the Brotherhood? Maybe it's time I go off on my own and stop being used as someone else's pawn. But that's if I get out of here. And it's not looking good.


End file.
